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Prep schools battle to be the next big hockey factory

Shattuck-St. Mary's in Minnesota is the gold standard, but as recent draft picks such as Warren Foegele and Mark Jankowski have proven, there are many fine institutions out there to develop one's game.

The first-ever National Independent School Invitational Championship is happening now, just north of Toronto. Hosted by St. Andrew's College and Upper Canada College, the 10-team challenge brings together a lot of prep programs that are familiar with each other, but organizers hope this shindig will also increase the level of exposure these hockey teams receive.

While New England prep schools have long been known for hockey excellence, programs such as St. Andrew's and Stanstead College in Quebec are just beginning to rise up. St. Andrew's boasts Carolina Hurricanes third-rounder Warren Foegele as an alum, while Stanstead produced Calgary Flames first-rounder Mark Jankowski.

“The idea for us is to have a place for student-athletes to achieve both their hockey and academic goals under one roof," said St. Andrew's coach David Manning. "And not have to sacrifice on either.”

Naturally, the gold standard for schools such as these is Shattuck-St. Mary's in Minnesota, an institution with one of the most impressive alumni lists anywhere in the hockey world.

“They're a measuring stick for everybody,' Manning said. "They've gained a lot of notoriety, obviously because of players like Crosby, Toews, Parise and Okposo. I wouldn't say we want to be just like Shattuck's, because their model may be a little different than ours, but we want to compete with them for sure. They're the top of the pyramid.”

And it's worth noting that when Manning's Saints took on Shattuck's a few weeks ago, his boys split a pair of games with the Sabres. This year's main draw for St. Andrew's is defenseman Austin Cho, a 2015 draft prospect committed to R.P.I. While he's not slated to go as high as Foegele, scouts are still watching.

“He's got good hockey sense and composure, doesn't panic," said Dan Marr, head of NHL Central Scouting. "He's always on top of the play in the right position so that he's not getting in trouble. And he's got some prickliness.”

The key for Marr and like-minded talent hawks is seeing Cho and others in this tournament (Stanstead's David Jankowski, Mark's little brother, is the other big name) in the right situations. Though St. Andrew's has played Shattuck's and other name prep teams such as Culver Military Academy (2015 prospect Karch Bachman) and the Dexter School (Boston Bruins pick Ryan Donato), there is a lot more variance in the competition than there would be in say, the Ontario League or United States League. So how do they evaluate players such as Cho and Jankowski?

“You learn how to take the parts of the player's game that you can apply for comparison purposes and take the elements of the level of competition and remove that from the equation," Marr said. "It's not an exact science but over time scouts have their own ways of evaluating that.”

Marr chose to watch Cho and the Saints play Ridley College at this tourney, for example, because he knows the Tigers play a physical, competitive style.

For Cho, the decision to come to St. Andrew's was about getting an education while playing hockey, something he will continue to do at R.P.I. Though he's already pretty solid at 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, the blueliner wants to get stronger and St. Andrew's employs a full-time trainer and plenty of gym time. Plus, there's the unique aspect of boarding at the institution.

“It's really cool," Cho said. "You get really close to the guys you're playing with and it's a whole community. It's good for bonding.”

A puck-moving blueliner who is also solid in his own zone, Cho is a Drew Doughty fan and he can certainly jump into the play in a way that the L.A. Kings star would appreciate. But he's also a heady player.

The hope at St. Andrew's, of course, is that next year's Saints will also have someone on the NHL radar like Cho. Foegele put the program on the map last year and his coach could not have been prouder of how the current University of New Hampshire Wildcat handled himself.

“He worked for it and he handled the microscope very well all season," Manning said. "When NHL teams came to watch us, they came to watch him.”

While Foegele went straight from the draft to UNH, Cho will most likely play another season elsewhere before he heads to R.P.I. Cedar Rapids owns his USHL rights, or he could stay at St. Andrew's. Either way, he's excited to play for the NCAA's Engineers in the future.

“It was kinda like here," he said. "The coaching staff impressed me, the facilities were nice and everything just fit. I watched a game and loved their style of game.”

If an NHL team loves his style - and half a dozen have already come calling - he may just hear his name called in Florida this summer. And even if he doesn't, he's still well on his way to a college hockey career. Some of his teammates with the Saints will join him on that circuit, but as Manning points out, the worst-case scenario is that his charges get an education at one of the best independent schools in the country.

John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

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John Tavares scores with a move no one had ever done before

The New York Islanders captain undressed Jay Bouwmeester in the most unusual of ways, but the important thing is he kept the puck. Then he buried it

John Tavares: good at hockey.

The New York Islanders captain pulled off an absolutely stunning series of moves last night, culminating in a laser-shot goal against St. Louis Blues goalie Jake Allen. But let's get back to his humbling of Olympic gold medallist Jay Bouwmeester, because that's where the real magic happened.

Witness, as Tavares puts his stick behind his back and grabs it with his other hand while still skating and fending off Bouwmeester. Then, since he is a patient boy, Tavares waits and waits and waits before firing one top corner on Allen:

As the soccer folks would say, lovely. New York would go on to beat the Blues 3-2, with Anders Lee scoring the other two goals for the Isles. After struggling to begin the season, New York is now 6-2-2 in its past 10 games. Tavares leads the squad with 21 points through 26 contests.

Canadiens’ Pacioretty spent all of November playing on a broken foot

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Canadiens’ Pacioretty spent all of November playing on a broken foot

Max Pacioretty has a good reason for his slump throughout November: he was playing with a broken foot. Pacioretty found his groove to start December, though, with three goals and four points in four games.

The Canadiens’ major off-season move saw P.K. Subban shipped out to Nashville in exchange for Predators captain Shea Weber, and there have been rumblings that Montreal could be heading towards another major move at some point this season, this including captain Max Pacioretty.

While the rumor may sound far-fetched or bizarre, it wasn’t without reason. You see, Pacioretty, 28, was off to one of the slowest starts of his career and through the early part of the season he looked as though he was a shell of his former goal-scoring self. By the end of October, Pacioretty had just two goals. Come the end of November, he had increased that to just five. All the while, Pacioretty was watching his ice time fluctuate.

It’s near impossible to know exactly when the injury came, especially without Pacioretty outright saying when it occurred, but it’s not hard to believe that the veteran winger was fighting through injury over the course of the past month. Pacioretty has been one of the league’s most consistent goal scorers in the past four seasons.

From the start of the 2012-13 lockout shortened campaign until the culmination of the 2015-16 season, Pacioretty scored 121 goals, good for the ninth most in the league. His .43 goals per game rate over that span is the same as that of Jamie Benn’s and ranked ahead of Sidney Crosby, Rick Nash, James Neal, Vladimir Tarasenko, Evgeni Malkin and you get the point. This season, though, Pacioretty’s five goals through 23 games had his goals rate at roughly half of his rate of the past few seasons.

That has changed in early December, though. Since the calendar turned over, Pacioretty has been one of the hottest scorers in the Montreal lineup and a terror on the ice. In four games, he has a team-leading three goals and four points, no one has put more rubber on net than Pacioretty’s 15 shots and there isn’t a single forward in the lineup seeing more ice time or shifts. He broke out of his November-long slump in a big way, too, with a two-goal, three-point performance against the usually smothering Los Angeles Kings.

If Pacioretty is fully healed, and his recent performance seems to indicate as such, don’t expect those trade rumors to keep gathering much, or any, steam. Finding his form from past seasons makes him one of the best weapons in the Canadiens’ lineup and a potential game breaker as the season wears on.

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The Golden Knights have hit another hurdle with their name, this time with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A trademark request has been rejected, but it doesn’t sound like the team expects a name change.

The Vegas Golden Knights are really having a tough time catching a break in the naming department.

On Wednesday, a trademark request by the Golden Knights was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in large part because the name and logo were deemed too similar to that of the NCAA’s College of St. Rose Golden Knights.

Yes, that’s right, yet another roadblock between the NHL’s newest franchise and the name Golden Knights.

The first hurdle for the team, and the first real hubbub about the name, came shortly after the naming ceremony in late November. The team had only had the Golden Knights moniker in place for a week when it was reported by The Fayetteville Observer’s Steve DeVane that the U.S. Army was set to review Vegas’ use of the name because it is shared by the Army’s highly decorated parachute team.

And all that came after Vegas owner Bill Foley purposely strayed from his first choice for the team name, Black Knights, in order to avoid any conflict with the U.S. Army’s NCAA athletics programs and after the singular name, Knights, was reportedly avoided in order to forego any conflict with the OHL’s London Knights.

Suffice to say, the naming process has been a headache thus far. However, before those who despise the name and/or logo go celebrating in the streets, it should be noted that the latest naming hurdle likely means nothing in the long run.

“Office actions like this are not at all unusual, and we will proceed with the help of outside counsel in preparing a response to this one,” the statement reads.

In their statement, Vegas also pointed to the shared names of UCLA and Boston, both named the Bruins, Miami and Carolina, both named the Hurricanes, and even pointed out that Vegas and Clarkson share the Golden Knights name. None of this is to mention the MLB’s Texas Rangers and the NHL’s New York Rangers share a name.

“We believe, at the end of the day, all parties will embrace the fact that we are the Vegas Golden Knights and this absolutely will work out,” Craven told Gotz. “I hope people don’t overreact to this at all. We believe everyone will be satisfied. We are only going to enhance the name Golden Knights for everyone. That’s our goal.”

UPDATE: NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly has released the following statement:

“We are currently reviewing the Trademark Office's letter and will prepare a detailed response demonstrating why we continue strongly to believe the Vegas Golden Knights mark should be registered in co-existence with the college registration, just as a number of other nicknames currently co-exist in professional and college sports (particularly where there is no overlap as to the sport for which the nickname is being used). That response is not due until June 7, 2017.

“We consider this a routine matter and it is not our intention to reconsider the name or logo of this franchise. We fully intend to proceed as originally planned, relying on our common law trademark rights as well as our state trademark registrations while we work through the process of addressing the question raised in the federal applications.”

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ECHL defenseman Anthony Calabrese is “lucky to be alive” after a “careless, reckless” hit, and Tyler Murovich, who delivered the blow, has been given a 12-game suspension as a first-time offender.

There are few plays scarier than seeing a player hit from behind and sent headfirst into the boards. That kind of play is made that much harder to watch when knowing the severity of the injury suffered.

During an ECHL contest on Nov. 24 between the Norfolk Admirals and Atlanta Gladiators, ECHL veteran Tyler Murovich delivered an incredibly dangerous shove to the back of Anthony Calabrese, a 24-year-old defenseman who’s only 12 games into his ECHL career.

The result of the hit was frightening. Calabrese was left laying face down on the ice, near motionless. The Admirals rearguard would eventually be placed on a stretcher, taken from the ice and transported to hospital.

That may seem harsh to some given that Murovich is a first-time offender, but given the severity of Calabrese’s injury, it actually seems like a somewhat light punishment.

As a result of the hit, Calabrese suffered broken C7 and T1 vertebrae. In simpler terms, he broke both his neck and his back. Oh, and he also punctured his lung. In fact, Calabrese told The Virginian-Pilot’s Jim Hodges that doctors told the young center that he’s “lucky to be alive.”

“It was a miracle, and they say I’m going to make a full recovery,” Calabrese told Hodges. “It’s going to be a long road, but I’d rather be alive than be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”

What helped Calabrese escape with his life, he told Hodges, was advice he had gotten early in his career from a high school coach. Calabrese was taught that if he was ever going into the boards head first to lift his chin and turn to the side in an attempt to avoid taking the brunt of the impact with the top of his head.

“That’s honestly the only thing that registered in my mind when I was going in: at the last minute, pick my head up,” Calabrese told Hodges. “I remember picking my head up and turning it to the right.”

Thankfully, doctors told Calabrese that he can eventually return to the ice and that the injuries suffered from the hit won’t cost him his career. His spinal cord, he told Hodges, wasn’t damaged due to the hit. And, as hard as it may be to believe, doctors said it was the “best possible break” in a situation such as Calabrese’s.